Ship Spotting

Terrible picture of MV Bob Hope -or- MV Fisher

Driving up Germantown Road from St. John a couple of days ago I noticed a US Navy ship and I thought I'd like to get a photo of that ship. Problem with Germantown Road is that there are very few places where you can pull off the road, and it's busy enough that I didn't want to just stop in the middle of the road. Now if I had a proper camera, I could probably have got a shot of the ship just by pointing my camera out the window and pressing the go button. 

Sidebar rant: But I don't have a proper camera, instead I have a fancy-schmancy smartphone. It takes great pictures, much better than my last smartphone, or maybe I've just subliminally modified my phone handling so I am now compatible with the smartphone's preferred method of behavior. Anyway, taking a picture with a smart phone requires, multiple fingers, multiple touches and the patience of a saint. For someone who grew up with mechanical switches that reacted instantly, all these new-fangled electronic gizmos with their multiple milli-second delays are effing bullshit.

Today I thought I would make an effort to try and take a picture of this ship. First I took off driving directly towards the ship. Big fail. No roads come anywhere near the docks. Most of the land is given over to parking lots for imported cars, it's all private industrial stuff, no ger-finger-pokin-tourists wanted.

Cross the St. Johns bridge and head up US Highway 30. Not a tourist friendly area. Cliffs on the south side of the road and tank farms on the north side. Took the first photo from an entrance to one of these tank farms.

Another terrible picture of MV Bob Hope -or- MV Fisher

Took this from another pull-out a little farther up the road. Not looking good here. Turned around and headed back toward the bridge and found a side road so I pulled over.

NW Hoge Ave

And, oh look, there's stairs going up the hill, maybe I'll get high enough I can get a decent shot. The stairs are something else.

Stout, industrial strength stairs

that go way up the hillside

but ultimately don't go anywhere.

Seriously long stairs that got me high enough up to get the next photo

MV Bob Hope -or- MV Fisher

VesselFinder reports the MV Bob Hope and the MV Fisher are both in Portland. I only saw the one ship. Looking at Wikipedia's photos, they appear to be identical. I don't know whether the report showing that both MV Bob Hope and the MV Fisher are in Portland is in error, or the Navy obfuscating their ship's locations, or whether I'm blind and the ships are here.

USNS Bob Hope has appeared here before.